Calculus problem with Summation I think?

[harry2331]

Homework Statement

A line of buckets numbered 0,1,2... extends indefinitely to the left with an elephant behind each bucket. Initially, all of the buckets are empty but then peanuts start falling into bucket 0 at a rate of one per second for 2^12 seconds. Whenever 5 peanuts accumulate in a bucket the elephant behind the bucket picks up all five, eats four, and places the remaining one in the bucket immediately to the left. When there are no more peanuts to be eaten, how many peanuts remain in each bucket?

 

[Dick]

No, it's not a calculus problem. Try working it out for small numbers of peanuts. Doesn't it remind you of addition in arithmetic base 4?

 

[Dick]

Sorry, typo. Make that base 5.